Page 101 of York

So I walked forward.

“What do you plan to do with my body?”

“Lotta predators out this way. There’d be nothing left but bones in a few months. Then those can just get crushed up pretty easily. If I’m still around by then.”

“Someone will look for me eventually,” I said. “Someone is watching my daughter. They’ll get suspicious if I don’t check in.”

“Well, that won’t be a problem for long. She’s got to go too. Neither of you deserve this ranch.”

“You know what the sad thing is, Sonny? If I’d been told and came here and saw that you were still working here, I would have cut you in.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I really liked you once, if you remember. And I saw how hard you and your father worked. I would have cut you in.”

“Not enough. Not as much as I’ve gotten myself. How much I’m gonna get myself once you’re gone. Get on your knees.”

Gladly.

There was a big, sharp rock right in front of me.

My body was blocking it from his view.

So I started to go down, but before my knees hit the ground, my hand closed over the rock.

I whipped up and around, grabbing his wrist with the gun and pushing it up into the air as I swung with the rock, cracking him in the mouth. Then nose.

He cried out, cursed, then below all that I heard it. The gun cocking.

I didn’t think. I lowered down and rammed into his midsection, catching him off-guard enough to send him stumbling back, catching the corner of the stone.

He grunted, his arms flying out to try to catch himself.

The gun clattered to the ground and I flew at it. But the second I closed my hands around it, both of his were on mine, prying, crushing, making pain shoot through my hands.

I was half-blind with fear and anger and a bone-deep need to survive, to make it back to my little girl… and the man who had begun to mean so much to me.

Everything blurred around the edges as we fought over the gun, as we both lost it, lost sight of it, as all that was left was hands grabbing, hitting, slapping.

My back cracked against the wall, stealing my breath, making my eyes water.

Then I saw the rock in his hand.

I forced my body to go dead weight, dropping down faster than he could swing.

It was as I was down there, trying to hold onto his legs so he couldn’t grab me. I felt it then.

The bulge under his jeans.

I yanked up his pant leg, hoping for a gun.

But it wasn’t a gun.

It was a hunting knife.

A drop point hunting knife.

I clawed at it just as Sonny got a hold of my hair, yanking so viciously that tears flooded my eyes and my scalp screamed.